PREPARE 
TRANSACTION(7)					  PostgreSQL 9.2.7 Documentation				    PREPARE TRANSACTION(7)

NAME

       PREPARE_TRANSACTION - prepare the current transaction for two-phase commit

SYNOPSIS

       PREPARE TRANSACTION transaction_id

DESCRIPTION

       PREPARE TRANSACTION prepares the current transaction for two-phase commit. After this command, the transaction is no longer associated with
       the current session; instead, its state is fully stored on disk, and there is a very high probability that it can be committed
       successfully, even if a database crash occurs before the commit is requested.

       Once prepared, a transaction can later be committed or rolled back with COMMIT PREPARED (COMMIT_PREPARED(7)) or ROLLBACK PREPARED
       (ROLLBACK_PREPARED(7)), respectively. Those commands can be issued from any session, not only the one that executed the original
       transaction.

       From the point of view of the issuing session, PREPARE TRANSACTION is not unlike a ROLLBACK command: after executing it, there is no active
       current transaction, and the effects of the prepared transaction are no longer visible. (The effects will become visible again if the
       transaction is committed.)

       If the PREPARE TRANSACTION command fails for any reason, it becomes a ROLLBACK: the current transaction is canceled.

PARAMETERS

       transaction_id
	   An arbitrary identifier that later identifies this transaction for COMMIT PREPARED or ROLLBACK PREPARED. The identifier must be written
	   as a string literal, and must be less than 200 bytes long. It must not be the same as the identifier used for any currently prepared
	   transaction.

NOTES

       PREPARE TRANSACTION is not intended for use in applications or interactive sessions. Its purpose is to allow an external transaction
       manager to perform atomic global transactions across multiple databases or other transactional resources. Unless you're writing a
       transaction manager, you probably shouldn't be using PREPARE TRANSACTION.

       This command must be used inside a transaction block. Use BEGIN(7) to start one.

       It is not currently allowed to PREPARE a transaction that has executed any operations involving temporary tables, created any cursors WITH
       HOLD, or executed LISTEN or UNLISTEN. Those features are too tightly tied to the current session to be useful in a transaction to be
       prepared.

       If the transaction modified any run-time parameters with SET (without the LOCAL option), those effects persist after PREPARE TRANSACTION,
       and will not be affected by any later COMMIT PREPARED or ROLLBACK PREPARED. Thus, in this one respect PREPARE TRANSACTION acts more like
       COMMIT than ROLLBACK.

       All currently available prepared transactions are listed in the pg_prepared_xacts system view.

	   Caution
	   It is unwise to leave transactions in the prepared state for a long time. This will interfere with the ability of VACUUM to reclaim
	   storage, and in extreme cases could cause the database to shut down to prevent transaction ID wraparound (see Section 23.1.5,
	   "Preventing Transaction ID Wraparound Failures", in the documentation). Keep in mind also that the transaction continues to hold
	   whatever locks it held. The intended usage of the feature is that a prepared transaction will normally be committed or rolled back as
	   soon as an external transaction manager has verified that other databases are also prepared to commit.

	   If you have not set up an external transaction manager to track prepared transactions and ensure they get closed out promptly, it is
	   best to keep the prepared-transaction feature disabled by setting max_prepared_transactions to zero. This will prevent accidental
	   creation of prepared transactions that might then be forgotten and eventually cause problems.

EXAMPLES

       Prepare the current transaction for two-phase commit, using foobar as the transaction identifier:

	   PREPARE TRANSACTION 'foobar';

COMPATIBILITY

       PREPARE TRANSACTION is a PostgreSQL extension. It is intended for use by external transaction management systems, some of which are covered
       by standards (such as X/Open XA), but the SQL side of those systems is not standardized.

SEE ALSO

       COMMIT PREPARED (COMMIT_PREPARED(7)), ROLLBACK PREPARED (ROLLBACK_PREPARED(7))

PostgreSQL 9.2.7						    2014-02-17						    PREPARE TRANSACTION(7)